Sunday, December 27, 2009
Little Things
It's those little things in life that make you bothered. The insignifcant ebb and flow of the tides can create havoc with you during this solstice. Thank the moon and the stars and the rain and wind and bread and butter and jam on toast and squeaky voices in your ear and suprises and flickering lights on the tree and the thump on the stairs as they go to bed at last and temperature rising and clear safe roads and no bad news on the radio and tv at it's best and a damned good movie and a cup of tea and frozen puddles and trapeze artist's and tradition and malaria nets and laminate flooring and the price of the pint and the breeze on her face and the song in our hearts and those candid moments and a great big hug and the advance of man and the curve of a ball and women in kind and helpful directions and maps to get you there and the tgv and leaving cert studies and your first kiss and the taste of a pint and the sweat of a brow and punctuation today and phones for the kids and chocolate stained faces and the endless questions and the never ending wonder and ................................................................................................Just Thanks again!!!
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
The Others
I always love to stroll through other peoples blogs. To be able to just have a quick look each day into some other persons passion. A tiny little voyage of discovery that can open up some new avenues that previously you had no idea were there. I have recently discovered so may interesting blogs through the blogs of note. Who would have tought that so much talent is out there. Artists with God given talents. They make me feel as if I have no talents at all. I glance at my ramblings to find that they are dull in comparison. These people have raw talent the like of which I would never have seen if not for Blogs of Note!!
I'll have to start posting more photos on my daily writings. I'm divided between my wordpress and blogspot loyalties. Each blog is quite differnet in what I might ramble on about. After all Return of Absent Friends is my first little baby and I feel quite attached to it. The only problem I find is getting people to view the bloody thing.....no comments at all of any worth. Call me vain but it would be nice to have a tiny bit of traffic around here. Maybe I have some kind of mental block on things. I will endeavour to spread the word over the next couple of weeks and try to post more often on this blog of mine. I must keep up with the others!!!
I'll have to start posting more photos on my daily writings. I'm divided between my wordpress and blogspot loyalties. Each blog is quite differnet in what I might ramble on about. After all Return of Absent Friends is my first little baby and I feel quite attached to it. The only problem I find is getting people to view the bloody thing.....no comments at all of any worth. Call me vain but it would be nice to have a tiny bit of traffic around here. Maybe I have some kind of mental block on things. I will endeavour to spread the word over the next couple of weeks and try to post more often on this blog of mine. I must keep up with the others!!!
Monday, October 5, 2009
Potrait of Me
I hope you all like the pic I have of myself. This was taken a few years ago so it is not how I might look today...my hair is shorter. I've discovered that I have very little decent photos of me. There just aren't any to be found...a few from when I was a young lad but alas there are no present day ones. Maybe this is a position that may not change. Generally I just don't like any photos of myself....tis ' a rare snap that I might like. Some people can have pictures of themselves plastered all over their walls. Not me.
People change so much in such a little amount of time. Especially now that the clock seems to be speeding up. There isn't a watchmaker for miles that can produce a watch that can pause time...even for the moment when you are at your peak. Since that picture was taken I think I have aged somewhat in years...it wasn't all that long ago. Today I was doing a bit of a clean up and came across some photos that were taken of me when I was 22- 23 years of age ...a rollercoaster period of my life...and by jimny do I look young. I'm not being pretentious here people.... but I do. I was shocked to the very core...the old "Look how young you were there, love!"..I don't want to hear that comment.
I want to hear the.."Jaysus, you still look as good now as you did then!!"...comment with sincerity. I even see it in my friends and family. The year's wait for no man. It's not as if I never knew that this was going to happen. I'm never considered myself to be a Dorian Gray figurehead but there was always the hope that somehow one day I would accidently fall into the fountain of youth. I didn't expect to be falling off the horse in Tir na Og unawares to myself.
Don't get me wrong now people...I still have some traces of my youth....grasping at straws here now but all we can do is hope for that Salmon to come leaping out of the water one day into our laps!!!!
There's always the old reliable cliches.."Your'e only as young as you feel!!"...thats no good when your'e pushing a zimmerframe around the place. I hope I don't get to that stage. There should be a service for that onset that just creeps up on us. An agency that monitors you through life, keeping an eye on your physical fitness and mental health.
"How far will you let yourself go sir!...Would you like our premium SAS package or are you happy with the bi-yearly checkup scenario??"
An agency that snuffs you out like a candle if your specified criteria in life are not being met. Some people have different standards to others so the agency has to be real clear. Only they should know when the reaper will appear....because after all when the time comes we might change our mind!
That's the thng with ageing...it creeps up on you when you weren't looking. Only for the photos today I thought the roses in my garden still had some bloom left in them. Age is a slow mover...some people age quicker than others but the average person never really double checks on the old sand trickling through that egg timer. Just when you thought you had enough grains of sand to build a bloody pyramid...your diving to that timer trying to turn it around to get another run through. Some people make it there just in time ...others are constantly monitoring those grains. Never keep your eyes from that bloody timer.... my fickle friends. Your life just might depend on it!
Maybe I'm jumping ahead a bit but you have to be prepared for these things. I won't be ringing up the agency just yet but i will be keeping their number on speed dial. There are lots of vacancies for other types of agencies like that one...I can't really go into them on these pages...my wife is monitoring me...suffice is to say that there wouldn't be any recession for all the problems that needed to be solved. Where is MacGyver when you need him?.....now he was the kind of fella to get you sorted in a jiffy!!!!
People change so much in such a little amount of time. Especially now that the clock seems to be speeding up. There isn't a watchmaker for miles that can produce a watch that can pause time...even for the moment when you are at your peak. Since that picture was taken I think I have aged somewhat in years...it wasn't all that long ago. Today I was doing a bit of a clean up and came across some photos that were taken of me when I was 22- 23 years of age ...a rollercoaster period of my life...and by jimny do I look young. I'm not being pretentious here people.... but I do. I was shocked to the very core...the old "Look how young you were there, love!"..I don't want to hear that comment.
I want to hear the.."Jaysus, you still look as good now as you did then!!"...comment with sincerity. I even see it in my friends and family. The year's wait for no man. It's not as if I never knew that this was going to happen. I'm never considered myself to be a Dorian Gray figurehead but there was always the hope that somehow one day I would accidently fall into the fountain of youth. I didn't expect to be falling off the horse in Tir na Og unawares to myself.
Don't get me wrong now people...I still have some traces of my youth....grasping at straws here now but all we can do is hope for that Salmon to come leaping out of the water one day into our laps!!!!
There's always the old reliable cliches.."Your'e only as young as you feel!!"...thats no good when your'e pushing a zimmerframe around the place. I hope I don't get to that stage. There should be a service for that onset that just creeps up on us. An agency that monitors you through life, keeping an eye on your physical fitness and mental health.
"How far will you let yourself go sir!...Would you like our premium SAS package or are you happy with the bi-yearly checkup scenario??"
An agency that snuffs you out like a candle if your specified criteria in life are not being met. Some people have different standards to others so the agency has to be real clear. Only they should know when the reaper will appear....because after all when the time comes we might change our mind!
That's the thng with ageing...it creeps up on you when you weren't looking. Only for the photos today I thought the roses in my garden still had some bloom left in them. Age is a slow mover...some people age quicker than others but the average person never really double checks on the old sand trickling through that egg timer. Just when you thought you had enough grains of sand to build a bloody pyramid...your diving to that timer trying to turn it around to get another run through. Some people make it there just in time ...others are constantly monitoring those grains. Never keep your eyes from that bloody timer.... my fickle friends. Your life just might depend on it!
Maybe I'm jumping ahead a bit but you have to be prepared for these things. I won't be ringing up the agency just yet but i will be keeping their number on speed dial. There are lots of vacancies for other types of agencies like that one...I can't really go into them on these pages...my wife is monitoring me...suffice is to say that there wouldn't be any recession for all the problems that needed to be solved. Where is MacGyver when you need him?.....now he was the kind of fella to get you sorted in a jiffy!!!!
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Lisbon One Way Ticket
Yesterday I cast my vote for Europe and I've just found out that it looks very like a YES all the way. Hopefully something good may come of it but it will probably be too late for all of us at this late stage. It's like closing the gate after the Llamas have bolted. And we all know what happens when the Llamas get...havoc!!
It seems like ages since I even bothered to post on this blog but I have returned and with a force that you have never seen before...more images... stories.......possibly a better layout in the near future. Bear with me.
The winter is coming in fast. I can hear the wind outside ....the leaves are already brown on the ground. The blinds are flapping on that window near my desk...a cool wind is blowing. There's something about the Autumn which gives a feeling of freshness in the air that has been missing for so long. It's like old Mother Nature needs to get everything cleaned out for the coming year. A fresh start...no messing around. If things have to go, they just have to go. Make way for the new. I suppose it's like most things in life that we have to go through.
It may sound pretentious but I feel like that now...there is so much change going on in my life. I haven't experienced this so much of a metamorposis since I left college. Every year a new year...always something diffeerent...new subjects..teachers...new challenges. I don't know if I always met those challenges but one thing I know is that I had no other choice but to make a stab at them. Let the chips fall where they may. The time has come again for me to return to those halcyon days and meet all those challenges again. It seems like the last few years I have been living in some kind of a human cocoon and now is my time to be reborn into ....the same person I always was but with a whole new perspespective on life. My butterfly wings may not be showing but inside I feel like a Red Admiral....
It seems like ages since I even bothered to post on this blog but I have returned and with a force that you have never seen before...more images... stories.......possibly a better layout in the near future. Bear with me.
The winter is coming in fast. I can hear the wind outside ....the leaves are already brown on the ground. The blinds are flapping on that window near my desk...a cool wind is blowing. There's something about the Autumn which gives a feeling of freshness in the air that has been missing for so long. It's like old Mother Nature needs to get everything cleaned out for the coming year. A fresh start...no messing around. If things have to go, they just have to go. Make way for the new. I suppose it's like most things in life that we have to go through.
It may sound pretentious but I feel like that now...there is so much change going on in my life. I haven't experienced this so much of a metamorposis since I left college. Every year a new year...always something diffeerent...new subjects..teachers...new challenges. I don't know if I always met those challenges but one thing I know is that I had no other choice but to make a stab at them. Let the chips fall where they may. The time has come again for me to return to those halcyon days and meet all those challenges again. It seems like the last few years I have been living in some kind of a human cocoon and now is my time to be reborn into ....the same person I always was but with a whole new perspespective on life. My butterfly wings may not be showing but inside I feel like a Red Admiral....
Friday, April 17, 2009
Engine Trouble
Yesterday evening my neighbour called in to offer me a car. My own was giving me a serious amount of trouble last week. I'd go as far as to say that it was, in my opinion, totally banjaxxed! Sam from across the way is a mechanic for an opel dealer. He knows all there is to know about an engine, especially if it' an opel vectra engine like mine.
First the offer of a car for a few weeks, then a quick look at the engine...."Bring it down to my place and I'll have a quick look at it!" ...Before I knew what was happening he had the whole engine ripped apart to find what the problem was and by God he got to the route of it in double quick time. Now I don't know much about engines so when someone like Sam starts ripping pipes out and tearing at manifolds I just sit back and agree with the man. You just can't argue with the master of his trade when he is mid flow. He was fast too... even with one or two neighbours stopping by to have a chat about every thing and anything.
I must admit I felt a bit like a young fella not knowing what to do or say with fellas I don't really know all that well. So after all the pulling and dragging with a few jokes and old tales thrown in he gave me a list with what was needed to be done. Thats why I'm here at this very moment waiting for my engine to be skimmed by Murphy's Engineering of Douglas Street. I know my engine head is in the right hands. How do I know this? Well the man in Murphy's had dirty oil all over his hands...always a good sign I think. If your willing to get that dirty you must know what your doing!
So I'm stuck in Cork for a few hours waiting for the job to be done and hopefully tomorrow my car should be formula one ready again. Looks like I'm stuck with it for a while yet. It has served me well through the years....sigh!!
First the offer of a car for a few weeks, then a quick look at the engine...."Bring it down to my place and I'll have a quick look at it!" ...Before I knew what was happening he had the whole engine ripped apart to find what the problem was and by God he got to the route of it in double quick time. Now I don't know much about engines so when someone like Sam starts ripping pipes out and tearing at manifolds I just sit back and agree with the man. You just can't argue with the master of his trade when he is mid flow. He was fast too... even with one or two neighbours stopping by to have a chat about every thing and anything.
I must admit I felt a bit like a young fella not knowing what to do or say with fellas I don't really know all that well. So after all the pulling and dragging with a few jokes and old tales thrown in he gave me a list with what was needed to be done. Thats why I'm here at this very moment waiting for my engine to be skimmed by Murphy's Engineering of Douglas Street. I know my engine head is in the right hands. How do I know this? Well the man in Murphy's had dirty oil all over his hands...always a good sign I think. If your willing to get that dirty you must know what your doing!
So I'm stuck in Cork for a few hours waiting for the job to be done and hopefully tomorrow my car should be formula one ready again. Looks like I'm stuck with it for a while yet. It has served me well through the years....sigh!!
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Path to Cork
My older brother has always been up for a challenge and he was one of those people that has had a lasting and beneficial influence on my life. It may have been without him even knowing it but his input into the route of my life has taken me places I would probably not have gone. Firstly there was his interest in certain kinds of music and everything that came with it. It's amazing how one person can have such an affect.
I know that I have probably had a similar affect on him in regards to music also. We feed off each other. It's a thing thats in the blood...we feel the need to know what each is listening to...whats new on the scene? At the moment he is in the middle of preparing for the Cork city Marathon in June and I know he will do well. His blog www.pathtocork.wordpress.com is a minefield of interesting and witty facts of the ups and downs of his preparation. Check it out all you novice runners out there. I wish I could be there alongside him all the way to the finish but alas I will have to wait till next year.
I know that I have probably had a similar affect on him in regards to music also. We feed off each other. It's a thing thats in the blood...we feel the need to know what each is listening to...whats new on the scene? At the moment he is in the middle of preparing for the Cork city Marathon in June and I know he will do well. His blog www.pathtocork.wordpress.com is a minefield of interesting and witty facts of the ups and downs of his preparation. Check it out all you novice runners out there. I wish I could be there alongside him all the way to the finish but alas I will have to wait till next year.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
New Year..New Leg!!
Sorry to all my avid readers for not updating you over the last couple of months. Iv'e had a lot on my plate...a plate that you could say was overflowing with really awful stuff!!
Just before Christmas I just happened to break my kneecap as I was leaving a pantomime with my family.
Breaking bones is not nice..the pain..the shame..the uselesness you feel... the inabilty to carry out the most mundane of tasks...the reliance on other peoples help! Six weeks in a cast, lying on your back for hours, relying on others(my wife) to aid me in the chores of life!
Let me tell you all that in life one should take nothing for granted, never complain about your lot, get over your insecurities and get on with life.
This door was opened to me when I broke my knee! I was shown how awkward life can be when you are disabled, temporarily I know, but let me tell you it's not nice!!
It's only in the last few weeks that I've regained my legs. To be able to get around without the aid of crutches or someone else to drive you is a treat!
The only good thing about my little accident was that it enabled me to catch up on the reading that I had neglected over time. But nothing can compare to the normality of hopping in the car whenever you like or just to go for a stroll without wincing with pain.
I will enable to update you on my progress over the coming weeks and months of the year that is 2009. Be with me on this new journey of mine. I will endeavour to show you a new light in this world of ours.
Just before Christmas I just happened to break my kneecap as I was leaving a pantomime with my family.
Breaking bones is not nice..the pain..the shame..the uselesness you feel... the inabilty to carry out the most mundane of tasks...the reliance on other peoples help! Six weeks in a cast, lying on your back for hours, relying on others(my wife) to aid me in the chores of life!
Let me tell you all that in life one should take nothing for granted, never complain about your lot, get over your insecurities and get on with life.
This door was opened to me when I broke my knee! I was shown how awkward life can be when you are disabled, temporarily I know, but let me tell you it's not nice!!
It's only in the last few weeks that I've regained my legs. To be able to get around without the aid of crutches or someone else to drive you is a treat!
The only good thing about my little accident was that it enabled me to catch up on the reading that I had neglected over time. But nothing can compare to the normality of hopping in the car whenever you like or just to go for a stroll without wincing with pain.
I will enable to update you on my progress over the coming weeks and months of the year that is 2009. Be with me on this new journey of mine. I will endeavour to show you a new light in this world of ours.
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